Well let me just tell you how our trip has gone so far....and yes this is long
We left Wednesday last week to go to Oklahoma at about 9am. Planned on stopping that night in Moriarty or somewhere around there and then finishing driving the rest of the way. We caught news of the ice storm that was headed toward Oklahoma and just drove straight through. We stop somewhere, ha ha I know it's sad I can't remember what town we were in but somewhere by Farmington, New Mexico at a gas station with a dirt field next to it to let the horses get out of the trailer to drink and walk around. Well some stupid nasty old man with rotted out teeth came over and started yelling at me because some shavings fell out of the trailer when we unloaded them. So being my fiesty(sp?) self I started yelling back at him to go back to his truck. Soooo glad that I have a big husband because he heard us yelling at each other and he came around and yelled at the man and told him to leave me alone. Luckily the old man backed off and went to sulk in his truck. But it was pretty scary. There they are likely to whip out a gun and shoot your a**!!!! Well we got out of there alive and headed on. We made it to our destination about 5am the next morning, having snowed and rained 11 of the 19 hours of driving ( not so fun with a horse trailer!).
We got about 4 hours of sleep and my sister called me with news that she was headed to the hospital to have her baby. I was planning on flying back home when she had the baby but her due date was not until the 20th of Feb. So 3 1/2 weeks early I didn't have a flight and to get one immediately was over 600 bucks!! So I waited all day to hear the good news that she had my new niece that night, without me being there. To say the least I was not happy about it!
Our horse didn't eat his hay that morning so we went out to take his temerature and it was 102.7,which is way high and Clint had to run to the vet to get some medicine to get to give him. Luckily once we had those in him he was fine and went back to normal.
Then the ice came. It rained and rained and rained and rained...and froze... Get the jist of it?? EVERYTHING froze, no power, can't hardly go outside because it's so cold and definitely can't drive. We sat in our friends house with candles and talked the whole night. So the next day when we could drive we decided to run to walmart. On the way we passed some pastures with some baby calves in it that were all by themselves. Their mammas were on the othe side of the fence and left them behind. So being suckers for the calves we stopped to help. And yes it was still freezing and raining, but we ran through the grass and hopped the fences and we caught the calf. Actually I dove for it, in the mud/ice puddle and basically tackled it to catch it. It was so weak and tiny that Clint picked it up and handed it over the fence to me. I got it and RJ (our friend who lives down here) helped me lead it to it's mamma. The poor thing was trying to get some shelter from a tiny bush sticking out from the other side of the fence. It was about dead and was so cold it just layed down and wouldn't walk so he picked it up and litterally threw it on his shoulder to carry it. So I went to help clint with the other calf. After cutting hands, tearing my coat and being soaked we got them there!!
One of our friends horses got really sick Monday and she had been giving him some meds but he had been getting worse and worse. Last night she went out to check on him before bed and his lips were hung down way low and freezing cold, his tongue was purple, and he was really dehydrated. So they loaded him up to go to the vet an hour and half away and made it 50 miles and they felt the horse go down in the trailer so they pulled over an he had died. Come to find out that they think he died of blister beatles.
Blister beatles can get in the alfalfa hay down in Texas and Oklahoma and die in there when they bale it. They are extremely toxic to horses and they die from it really fast. Even worse, that hay had been fed to all of the horses here including our best horses. Don't know how they didn't get sick but I sure am thankful they didn't. We got rid of the hay and got new. Clint and RJ had to fly out today so us girls are on watch to make sure none of the other horses get sick. Good trip huh?!
Just to sum it all up, SCREW EVER BUYING HAY FROM TX or OK!!!!
